Woodlands sharpener = uhg…

[Southside]

One thing that will help you with overall band life and sharpening is to pull your bands before they are dull.  Basically you want to remove them from your saw just as they loose their edge, not "just a few more cuts in this log and I will change it", which leads to "ahh - this next one is a small log so I will run it here too".  Doing so requires a lot more band grinding and shortens the overall total BF you will get out of your bands.  

As to the WM CBN systems, they are actually quite easy to run as the stone is formed to match the profile exactly, no dressing, no guessing.  Just get the advance and grind takeoff right and it's off to the races.  With either system it helps to batch your bands according to use.  All of my own bands that I sharpen will be on their same trip through the sharpener together, so all I have to do is get things right for the first band and all the ones following don't require any adjustments.  

[barbender]

Like I say, the learning curve for a drag grinder is very steep. There are people on here that tried them and gave up sharpening their own because of the frustration, until Woodmizer came out with their CBN grinders. All that to say, they are tough to figure out and yes you will likely fry a few blades in the process.

 I had a neighbor that wanted a few blades sharpened, but I wouldn't be able to get to them for a few days. He asked if he could just stop over and use my sharpener. Haha I almost let him for a cruel joke, he had 3 or 4 blades I figured he'd have them all ruined before he figured it out. 

 Hang in there, the freedom of being able to sharpen your own is well worth the trouble!

[Nealm66]

I definitely get it. Settling up and using a chisel grinder for timber falling took a long time and some miserable days for mistakes. I'll try to get a better picture today and definitely appreciate the advice.  

[Nealm66]

I wonder how much difference the oil makes on the CBN grinder. I'd have to build a proper sharpening shed if I wanted one. How long does it take to swap a blade out in one of those? Do you have to back it up and then bring it in to the desired grind on each blade?

[terrifictimbersllc]

On the Woodmizer BMS250 CBN grinder, it takes about five seconds to take out the sharpened blade, probably at most a minute to get the next dull blade going. There are no delicate adjustments if the dull blade is the same width, or had the same number of sharpenings previously, as the blade that was previously sharpened. Most of that minute is taken painting the first 10 teeth red with layout fluid, and turning the advancer to get the first red tooth under the wheel. If you don't know the width of the blade that you were putting in to be sharpened compared to the previous one, then you need to carefully look at how the wheel comes down and adjust the height knob one way or the other, to make sure you get it right. This could add another minute. But I think most of us try to minimize this adjusting  by sharpening blades in batches of the same width, or as I do, sorting them by measuring them with the calipers for width first.

[TroyC]

I agree with the others that the tooth does not look well in the photos. I have the Woodland grinder and here's what I might contribute:

1. The stone has to be configured when new. The grinder comes with a 'template' to round the corner of the wheel to match the blade curve. If you did not dress the wheel you are using a 90 degree corner instead of a rounded wheel edge.

2. The sharpener should be set to take a whisper off of the face of the tooth. I set mine up, back off the engagement. Turn on the advancer, then carefully adjust the wheel in so that it just touches the blade, small sparks, just enough to get the metal shiny again! I adjust the gullet first, then the forward motion which gets the face. Takes a couple minutes to set the grinder. I do not sharpen all my blades at the same time so I have to set for each blade each cycle. Not a big problem.

3. The Grinder head is angled over to get the tooth angle. I use 10 degrees and found the machine needed a little tightening up in order to keep the correct angle. There was a post on this a year or so ago.

4. This grinder will not do the complete back side of the tooth as it finishes the grind. It goes down the face and as the blade advances it gets the gullet and a little up the back side of the tooth. If you want to finish that grind up the backside, you'll have to readjust the grinder after finishing the blade and set it up just to get that backside and run it thru again. I've never done that as refreshing the face gets me going again.

5. I do not have a setter :( so I sharpen until they don't cut good and put a new blade on. If you don't push a dull blade and sharpen before they dull, I can get 4 sharpenings out of a blade.

6. Lastly, I'm a hobbyist so I am not as demanding as a production operation would be. The above works for me. Good Luck!

[Bradm]

I got it figured out. It was brand new but a few things weren't assembled correctly and possibly where a lock nut should be it was just a regular nut. I also figured out the blade gets bound in the support arms and somehow can cause an over or under grind but a well placed paint can can catch the bind. I need to play with the gullet adjustment and do some sawing with what I sharpened and see if I'm in the ballpark.

  

Looks like there is a very large radius as well as an angle on your wheel.

When looking at the band, start in the gullet and follow the marks up to the top of the tooth.  You have bluing from the grinding in the gullet, at the corner it appears that there was no contact between the wheel and the band, and as has been observed earlier the hook angle of the tooth face looks negative (dubbed).

I use a coarse Desmond dresser to keep the form of the wheel form and the grits sharp between rounds.  I've found that even if I let it go too far beyond 1 round that the wheel starts grinding hard and leads to too much burning in the gullet.  If possible, run a grinding wheel that you can form so that it will grind the back of the tooth so that when the wheel drags off it is still grinding right at the edge.  You don't need to catch the full gullet (unless heavily burnt) but you do need to get the hook face, at least 50% of the gullet from the inside corner where it meets the face, and the back of the tooth.  A slight radius where the face meets the gullet is a good thing as square corners are spots that can develop cracks faster than the rest.

[Nealm66]

I went out this morning to try to get a better picture but ended up just dragging my thumb over the new vs the old and can definitely feel the difference. Almost like a small hook or eagle beak ( a term used for chisel grinding) which I can't wrap my head around how it's performed except maybe the profile like troyC mentioned ( thank you all by the way!) I thought I was pretty close to the provided profile guide but maybe I need to play with it a little and possibly the blade guide? On a chisel grinder it's as simple as raising the inside corner above the stone corner if it's desired. Maybe it's just my eyes and there is no hook? I probably should have researched this way more before jumping on it like a fire

[TroyC]

Do you have the head set for the proper angle? That brings the wheel down kind of sideways and that's where the 'hook' comes from . The angles are stamped into the back of the head, I have always used 10 degrees for general cutting on pine. 

[Nealm66]

I have it set at 14 which matches my blades. The new blades seem to cut great so far in our Doug fir and western cedar. I can adjust a little more angle and/ or tweak the stone to try and sharpen the angle at the top of the tooth. Would be nice if there was a diamond type dresser pre formed to eliminate ( my) human error. 

[Nealm66]

Currently building a 20' wide cover for lumber out of a chainsaw mill sled I had

 

[Nealm66]

Luckily I sliced up some beveled cedar to hide the ugly lol

[bushhog920]

 

 
Fluidpowerpro this is a pic of the fork pushing the tooth before the tooth being sharpened 😂

[fluidpowerpro]

I see that in your pic. On mine I put the fork in the forward gullet. I know that because on occasion would have issues with the fork sticking and not following the cam. When that happens the grinding wheel comes down directly on the fork. This could only happen if the fork is under the wheel. I have since fixed the issue by adding another spring to pull the fork back  Possibly ours are adjusted differently? There is a lot of adjustment range on the fork so maybe it's possible to place the fork in either place? I'll double check the next time I pull it out to sharpen blades.

[ladylake]

  Looks like plenty of adjustment, I'd set it up to push on the same tooth that is being sharpened.   Steve

[MattM]

You cannot have this sharpener push on the tooth being sharpened it needs to push as it sharpens so if you do that you will just grind the pusher. You should have it pushing the tooth to the right of the one being sharpened. In your picture it looks like you have it two teeth to the right.

Something else that I found helped make the Grindlux sharpener run more smoothly is to take a file and get rid of the sharp edges on all the sheet mettle that the blade touches and make everything smooth.
Do this to the blade clamp and the support arms. 

Also don't determine how much to grind by the woodland YouTube videos or other YouTube videos. Most people posting videos on YouTube for this are new to sharpening and try to make it seem like they're experts. Do the lightest grind possible and do multiple if you have too. It's a pain at approx 18-20 mins per band just grind time, but it's what you have to do if you don't want to ruin bands.

Make sure there is no pitch or dirt on the face or gullet of your teeth, this will make your sharpening very inconsistent as the push arm pushes against the buildup instead of the tooth.

If you want this grinder to grind more of the gullet then take off the little adjustable piece that the rod that lifts the head up and down sits on. Drill and tap a new hole to the left of the current hole and install the adjustable piece further to the left.

One last thing... The grinder comes with (or at least mone did) a little metal piece to show how to profile your stone. I didn't find it that good for grinding. You need your stone slightly round on the left side and the corner taken off the right side. Look up the videos by Cooks on how to profile their stones to get an idea on the shape. Even though there stones are a lot wider the idea is the same.

I had one of these for 6years, it's definitely a hobby sharpener but at the time it was the best I could get here in eastern Canada. Is slow as molasses and you definitely don't want to have to do more than a few blades on it at a time.... I've had many multi day sharpening sessions FML. Now with the BMS 250 I can do more in a half hour, including setup time than what I did in a day  8)

[Nealm66]

I'm thinking about just ordering the bms250 if there's not a long wait time. Curious if I still have to learn how to properly profile the stone? When I watched the woodmizer video it looked like a fairly aggressive grind? How often does their stone need to be trued? Is there still a steep learning curve? 

[Nealm66]

Disregard, I see some of my answers on their site while checking it out

[Nealm66]

Couple things, I feel like for good conscience, I need to make the woodland sharpener work before I try to sell it to recoup some of my money. I feel like I need to order some woodmizer blades so they jive perfectly with the new grinder. I don't see a delay in shipping for the bms250 but I'll call before I order so as to get the proper stone etc. I'm thinking about placing the sharpener on this site for sale. Would 75% of cost seem in the ballpark? 

[terrifictimbersllc]

You might want to settle in on what bands you are using before buying a CBN wheel or wheels. Any wheel you buy should exactly match the band profile you are using.

[MattM]

How many bands are you dulling per week? If your just a hobby guy then the woodland sharpener will be fine.... Better to spend the extra money a new sharpener would cost on a setter.
With a setter I was getting 7-8 sharpens per blade.
I used woodland sharpener for 6 years and only recently got the BMS 250. It was a 7.5 month wait for it....might be less now.

I think you might be talking about getting a BMS 25 not a 250 as you mentioned profiling the wheel. The 25 is like the woodland mills but faster and has changeable cams the 250 has CBN wheels and cost 5x what the woodland mills sharpener cost.

And fwiw I sold my woodland sharpener a week ago for the listed price after having it listed for a month and a half. They guy that bought it saved the taxes and shipping.

[MattM]

Something to keep in mind when your watching demo videos is that they're trying to sell you a product and lots of sparks and noise sounds good. Plus the more metal you take off the sooner you have to buy a new blade.

Your goal should be to remove the least amount of metal that will leave you with a sharp cutting edge and clean gullet and to get your money's worth out of each band if possible. We all lose enough bands to metal, rock strikes and breaks that you want the ones that don't hit anything go as far as possible.

[Magicman]

Don't overlook the BMST50.  It is a manual unit which includes both the sharpener and setter and uses CBN grinding wheels.

[ladylake]

You cannot have this sharpener push on the tooth being sharpened it needs to push as it sharpens so if you do that you will just grind the pusher. You should have it pushing the tooth to the right of the one being sharpened. In your picture it looks like you have it two teeth to the right.

Something else that I found helped make the Grindlux sharpener run more smoothly is to take a file and get rid of the sharp edges on all the sheet mettle that the blade touches and make everything smooth.
Do this to the blade clamp and the support arms.

Also don't determine how much to grind by the woodland YouTube videos or other YouTube videos. Most people posting videos on YouTube for this are new to sharpening and try to make it seem like they're experts. Do the lightest grind possible and do multiple if you have too. It's a pain at approx 18-20 mins per band just grind time, but it's what you have to do if you don't want to ruin bands.

Make sure there is no pitch or dirt on the face or gullet of your teeth, this will make your sharpening very inconsistent as the push arm pushes against the buildup instead of the tooth.

If you want this grinder to grind more of the gullet then take off the little adjustable piece that the rod that lifts the head up and down sits on. Drill and tap a new hole to the left of the current hole and install the adjustable piece further to the left.

One last thing... The grinder comes with (or at least mone did) a little metal piece to show how to profile your stone. I didn't find it that good for grinding. You need your stone slightly round on the left side and the corner taken off the right side. Look up the videos by Cooks on how to profile their stones to get an idea on the shape. Even though there stones are a lot wider the idea is the same.

I had one of these for 6years, it's definitely a hobby sharpener but at the time it was the best I could get here in eastern Canada. Is slow as molasses and you definitely don't want to have to do more than a few blades on it at a time.... I've had many multi day sharpening sessions FML. Now with the BMS 250 I can do more in a half hour, including setup time than what I did in a day  8)

The push rod pushed on the tooth being sharpened, then backs up and catch the next tooth as the wheel comes down and grinds the face and gullet.  So it is pushing the tooth that is getting sharpend .  Steve

[MattM]

You cannot have this sharpener push on the tooth being sharpened it needs to push as it sharpens so if you do that you will just grind the pusher. You should have it pushing the tooth to the right of the one being sharpened. In your picture it looks like you have it two teeth to the right.

Something else that I found helped make the Grindlux sharpener run more smoothly is to take a file and get rid of the sharp edges on all the sheet mettle that the blade touches and make everything smooth.
Do this to the blade clamp and the support arms.

Also don't determine how much to grind by the woodland YouTube videos or other YouTube videos. Most people posting videos on YouTube for this are new to sharpening and try to make it seem like they're experts. Do the lightest grind possible and do multiple if you have too. It's a pain at approx 18-20 mins per band just grind time, but it's what you have to do if you don't want to ruin bands.

Make sure there is no pitch or dirt on the face or gullet of your teeth, this will make your sharpening very inconsistent as the push arm pushes against the buildup instead of the tooth.

If you want this grinder to grind more of the gullet then take off the little adjustable piece that the rod that lifts the head up and down sits on. Drill and tap a new hole to the left of the current hole and install the adjustable piece further to the left.

One last thing... The grinder comes with (or at least mone did) a little metal piece to show how to profile your stone. I didn't find it that good for grinding. You need your stone slightly round on the left side and the corner taken off the right side. Look up the videos by Cooks on how to profile their stones to get an idea on the shape. Even though there stones are a lot wider the idea is the same.

I had one of these for 6years, it's definitely a hobby sharpener but at the time it was the best I could get here in eastern Canada. Is slow as molasses and you definitely don't want to have to do more than a few blades on it at a time.... I've had many multi day sharpening sessions FML. Now with the BMS 250 I can do more in a half hour, including setup time than what I did in a day  8)

The push rod pushed on the tooth being sharpened, then backs up and catch the next tooth as the wheel comes down and grinds the face and gullet.  So it is pushing the tooth that is getting sharpend .  Steve

If that's the case they must've changed the cam profile on the woodland mills sharpener since I bought mine. On mine you couldn't push the tooth that was being sharpened as the pusher is pushing as the gullet is getting ground. That's what makes this sharpener so inconsistent compared to other sharpeners that push the actual tooth that is being sharpened.